Date my rifle

[CrackStock]

Hey Hefty Kraut,

It is all nicely done and I think that it would not be bad for RevWar, but there would be some discussion of the iron mountings.
I was thinking the same as to the date or up to 5 years earlier. The lock seems to lock it closer than the custom furniture. I would look into finding someone to do a sand cast of my hand made parts and then install them. On the other hand, it is an excuse to build another gun which is always a good thing.


HalfStock,

I am no expert -- self appointed or otherwise, but I am actually building a similar rifle and started with iron mounts, but belatedly shifted to brass after learning more about the guns of that time period. I hope that discussing my errors can help someone else avoid the embarrassment, effort or expense of making a similar error.

CS

 

Howdy all! Just got in from shooting a while. Man I love this southern rifle as it is my best shooter.My other virginia just dont group as good as this poorboy. Id love to carry this rifle to renactments....but Im not quite sure it fits into my time period of the mid to late 1770s.Can yall give me an approx dateline of this rifles build and do ya reckon it could possibly be fit into my personna? Thanks a lot yall.....TN :hatsoff:

Howdy TNTrapper,
I think most iron mounted Southern Mountain rifles were made in the 19th century and all the ones I have seen had English locks on them instead of the German locks. Chambers Late Ketland lock makes a good lock for that style of rifle. I hope this helps ya some. If ya ever get a chance to go to the Davis Gun Museum in Claremore, Oklahoma you can see a bunch of Southern rifles there on display.
Cheers,
Don

 

[halfstock]

The area of the country has more to do with the type of metal used in the mounting southern area's re: tenn, kentucky hills = iron mounted, iron ore deposits found early, copper, tin etc. was way to costly to import.
Halfstock